


In A Crowded Room

by Elle_Monson



Series: Life is Swift [1]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/F, First Time, Pining, SIGH BOTTOM BECA, Smut, Swift Perfect Week 2020, im not sorry, lmao like angst dialed up to six fucking billion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:02:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24251032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elle_Monson/pseuds/Elle_Monson
Summary: Seven Taylor Swift albums, seven days, seven chapters imagining different times in the life and love of Beca and Chloe.There's a death in the last chapter of this story but you can read chapters one through six for a completely fluffy and generally angst-free lovely Bechloe endgame story!
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Series: Life is Swift [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758394
Comments: 104
Kudos: 160





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iPhone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iPhone/gifts).



> For iPhone because without her were wouldn't have Swift Perfect week and so many other amazing Fandom things.

Beca isn’t sure what she did to deserve all this attention and at times she’s not always certain she even wants it. It’s her freshman year of college and she seems to have become the star that both Jesse and Chloe choose to orbit around.

Chloe is sunshine and Jesse’s a moon beam and all of it makes Beca feel like a summer storm. (Fat Amy is obviously an unbearably loud rainbow.) The way her emotions and feelings sweep through her raucously and without warning is unbearable at times. Confusion pours down on her and there’s nothing she can do to shield herself.

Because Jesse is easy and kind and eager, and Chloe is perfect and sweet and unafraid. And Beca just doesn’t know what to do.

Beca isn’t proud that she’s chronically shy, she likes to imagine she’s just aloof. It stands out when she lies to Chloe at the Student Activities Fair, rather than sing for her.

“Sorry, I don’t even sing but it was really nice to meet you guys,” Beca lies before walking off. (She’s lying about not singing. It actually _was_ kind of nice to meet them, or Chloe at least.)

(Aubrey _does_ kind of scare her, not that she’d ever admit that to anyone.)

Jesse shows up at the radio station, a perky happy puppy. And his presence is uplifting in an annoying kind of way. Beca’s not dumb. She knows he’s flirting with her. And however annoying it is, it’s also flattering. Jesse’s cute.

Not to be outdone Chloe shows up in her shower. Her fucking _shower_. And Beca’s not stupid. She knows Chloe is making a pass at her, no matter what she says about joining her a cappella group. And the way she pesters her while they’re both standing there in the nude might be deemed inappropriate by some, but really Chloe’s presence there in the grimy shower stall is much more a promise than a threat.

(You kind of had to be there.)

(Beca’s glad you weren’t there.)

It’s still terrifying. 

Not so terrifying that Beca doesn’t try out for the Bellas. No, she can’t resist doing that. Not after what she saw in the shower, let’s be honest.

So now she’s got Jesse at work and Chloe at rehearsal and she wonders if her life is really a poorly written sitcom or even worse, a romance novel.

Jesse insists on buying her lunch and Chloe tries to pay for dinner and Beca just wants to scream at the world to stop turning so fast. Beca is worried the stress might poison her.

But then Jesse makes her laugh so hard she cries, and Chloe says something so saccharine it hurts her teeth and maybe having all these weirdos being in love with her isn’t so bad after all. And Jesse’s compliments make Beca blush and Chloe’s dance moves make her stomach twist with arousal. Beca is getting exhausted. Of course, there are worse places to be than trapped between a teddy bear and a soft place.

All this drama doesn’t stop Beca from memorizing the path to Chloe’s apartment that she shares with Aubrey and visiting it so frequently that Chloe starts to leave her door unlocked.

“Hey what are you doing?” Beca asks Chloe as she bounds into her apartment on a bright spring afternoon. Chloe’s got her headphones in and is sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over some book writing in it. She looks up and pops her headphones out.

“Listening to Taylor Swift.”

“Ew,” Beca says with a crinkled nose. “Come on it’s finally starting to get nice out and you promised you’d show me how to throw a football.”

Chloe rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling broadly. “Don’t hate on my music, I listen to all of yours.”

“That’s because all of _my_ music is good music.”

All things being equal she would… _probably_ choose Chloe. She feels a more carnal attraction to her, as well as a slightly more comfortably connection, though she adores them both. But all things _aren’t_ equal. 

She’s not in Seattle where she’d already told a few trusted high school friends that she was pretty sure she was attracted to both men and women. She’s in the hellish suburbs of Southern Baptist friendly Atlanta, Georgia where there’s a church (or two) on every street corner. She’s not with her laissez-faire mother who waves her hand around and says, ‘love wins out!’ when one of the local news channels highlights the pride parade in the summer. Instead she’s on her dad’s turf and he thinks Tucker Carlson’s hot takes are astute and he listens to Alex Jones on the radio.

Besides Jesse is a freshman just like her and Chloe is a graduating senior. Beca isn’t entirely sure about Chloe’s plans for after graduation, it’s actually a subject she’s actively avoided speaking about with Chloe since it makes her sad to think about. But surely Chloe isn’t going to stay in Atlanta. Surely, she’ll go back to Portland or move to some liberal northeastern or west coast city and start her real life without Beca and without the Bellas.

So, in the end she chooses Jesse to kiss. It’s easier that way, right? She walks confidentially across the performance hall and marches up to him.

“Told you,” he says with a hint of smugness playing in his voice. Whether he’s smug about Beca’s surrender to the gods of a cappella or the fact that she’s obviously chosen him over Chloe, Beca isn’t sure. (Or maybe he thinks she’s chosen him over Luke but if he does, he clearly hasn’t been paying attention all year.)

“Endings are the best part.”

“You’re such a weirdo,” she says with a smile before giving him a chaste kiss. She can’t help but laugh into it. It _does_ feel a bit like a bad teen movie.

She starts to wonder if she’s made the right choice before the kiss even ends.

That can’t be a good sign.

But her mind is might up, right?

Afterwards Aubrey corners her in her room. Beca thinks she might scold her for breaking the Anti-Treble Oath but no.

“How could you flirt with Chloe like that all year and then kiss _him_?” Aubrey is fuming.

“I didn’t…” Beca had thought the little triangle romance was playing out more privately than that.

“I don’t _care_ what you did or didn’t,” Aubrey says.

“He said- “

“I don’t _CARE_ what _he_ said. You could have said no.”

Maybe she should’ve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the fourth time I've written PP1 in like...2 and a half months, you'll have to bear with this quasi poetic mess of a first chapter. Don't worry smut starts in chapter 3.


	2. Rising Action

But Chloe was graduating and Beca was going to try dating Jesse, at least when school started back up. And for the summer she’s going back to Seattle to see her mother and unfortunately, she has a lot of free time. 

During all that free time it’s hard not to muddle through her thoughts about Chloe again and again.

Eventually Beca has had enough emotional turmoil and second guessing herself and she decides to write to her old childhood best friend. 

She met Stephen at art camp when she was ten years old while staying with her father in Atlanta during the summers as a child. They had gotten into the habit of writing letters to one another when Beca’s mom suggested it after Beca got home, distraught that she couldn’t see her new friend daily anymore.

_Hey Stephen,_ she writes and then bites the eraser on her pencil and ponders what to say for a moment.

_I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. I’m sorry, that’s my bad. It’s hard being so busy you know? But I do miss you. I miss you like crazy. The first year of college was a roller coaster ride. I passed all my classes (college isn’t as hard as they tell you it is when you’re little) and joined, get this, I joined an a cappella group/cult. Even weirder I think I’ll be the leader of said cult next year. We won a national championship and it’s crazy, but it may be my favorite new way to express music, aside from mixing._

_Remember when we were little, and our parents could solve all the hardest problems in our lives? Yeah, well, I never thought I’d say this, but I miss those days. I met a girl named Chloe and a guy named Jesse and they both fell in love with me and I chose Jesse, but I think I made the wrong choice._

_I know, I know, you’re freaking out. Who would have thought I’d bat for both teams? I mean in real life I’m so unathletic I don’t bat at all! Ugh bad joke._

_But yeah, I like girls and guys and this one girl, I really wish I had told you sooner. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I think I hurt her feelings but she’s graduating anyway so what was I supposed to do? It’d be different if she hadn’t been a senior._

_Anyway, love you, miss you. I’ll write again soon._

_All the Best,_

_Beca_

The summer days bleed by in a hot haze and Beca catches up with high school friends and mixes more mashups than she thought was possible. Her artistic spark is aflame and it’s great. 

Beca is reminded of the first summer that she could drive, when Stephen had flown from Atlanta to Seattle and their parents had allowed them to drive cross country from Seattle back to Atlanta. That’s where Beca had gotten the idea of making mashups in the first place, while cloistered in the hot car, listening to her iPod in one ear and Stephen’s in the other.

Things were so much easier when they were younger.

Chloe calls out of the blue one day and Beca stares in shock for a moment at her phone before picking it up nervously.

“Becs! Hey, how’s your summer been?”

“Hey Chloe. It’s been…fine.”

“Guess what!”

“What is it?”

“I failed Russian Lit.”

“Oh no, Chloe! I’m so- Wait why do you sound so happy?”

“Because I’ll be back next semester! Back with you, back with the Bellas!”

“Oh!” _Oh._ **Oh.**

_Chloe’s not graduating. Chloe’s going to be back next year. Chloe will be in Atlanta for another year. I really can’t wait to see Chloe again. Chloe…_

“Beca?”

“Yeah? Yeah! I’m here. Sorry.”

“Anyway, we should start planning our setlist for next year! I gotta run! There’s a puppy parade going down my street! Miss you, love you!”

“Bye Chl- “ But Chloe has already hung up the phone.

_Hey Stephen,_

_I miss you so much dude. You’re not going to believe this but that girl I wrote to you about? Chloe? She’s going to be back next year. I really wasn’t planning for this and maybe I wouldn’t have chosen Jesse if I had known she was coming back. I could kick myself right now honestly._

_Ok clearly if I feel so strongly about all of this, I should cut it off with Jesse. Right? I thought I blew it but if there’s still a chance I can work it out with Chloe and be honest with Jesse I have to take it._

_If I learned anything from you, it’s that I shouldn’t ever wait to tell people how I feel about them._

_Love you, miss you, I’ll see you soon when I get back to Atlanta for school._

_All the Best,_

_Beca_

Beca takes a deep breath before she calls Jesse. She _would_ wait and do this face to face, but they’re not even really together. They only kissed once. And he’s something like three thousand miles away, home for the summer in Marietta, Georgia.

“This is Jesse.”

“Ugh Jesse, you know how I feel about your customer service phone voice.”

“Sorry Beca, I just want my callers to feel welcome.”

“Listen, before we say anything else. Ugh, Jesse this _sucks_ but- “

“You regret kissing me and you only want to be friends.”

“Yeah, how did you- “

“Just a feeling.”

“Well also you should know it’s not you, it’s just that there’s someone- “

“It’s Chloe isn’t it?”

“…Ok now you’re freaking me out.”

“Come on Beca, I have eyes.”

Well, that was a lot less painful than Beca expected. Down a potential boyfriend, but up a friend, Beca spends the rest of the summer planning music with Chloe so Chloe can add choreography.

Beca plans to tell Chloe her feelings about her feelings the second she gets back to Atlanta. She even makes Chloe tell her where her new apartment is. Chloe tells her the place and unit number. ‘Second floor, next to the staircase on the corner. It even has a balcony, I put flower boxes out!’ Chloe specifies in a text.

It seems as if Chloe is dragging Beca headfirst to the airport, on to the plane, into the taxi, and back to campus. Beca tries to pretend that she’s Fearless but she’s completely lying to herself.

Before she heads to the address of Chloe’s new one-bedroom apartment, she tells the taxi driver to pull over on the back-country road they’re on and she walks the sad familiar steps down a stone path lined with stone monuments.

As she reaches the section of the graveyard where Stephen is laid to rest, memories of finding out about his death come flooding back into her mind’s eye. 

Her dad had called her just after her senior year of high school started and informed her of the undiagnosed atrial septal defect, a hole he’d had in his heart, probably since birth. When her dad told her Stephen had essentially dropped dead with no warning (he didn’t use such harsh words, but she figured out that was what happened later) she had collapsed and sobbed and not eaten for what felt like days. The funeral was too hastily thrown together for her to make it but Beca knows if she had gone, she would have sat wordlessly with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She would have hated it.

“Hey Stephen,” Beca says as she runs a hand over the smooth granite of his tombstone, kneeling in front of it.

“I’m going to see Chloe in a minute, but I wanted to come see you first.”

The sunny sky has turned a dark ominous grey as the sun sets and thunder rumbles in the distance.

“I want you to know that it’s one of my biggest regrets that I never got to tell you goodbye.”

Tears threaten to betray Beca’s eyes and she wipes her face, only to notice that, yes, she is crying softly, but it’s also started to rain quietly around her.

“I wish I could say goodbye,” she chokes out, desperately staring at her best friend’s grave. 

“I wish had said goodbye.”

The hole in Stephen’s heart that had killed him had left an irreparable hole in Beca’s as well. She wipes tears away with her sleeve wishing with every fiber of her being that somehow, he could answer her. It feels wrong to leave him here to go make romantic confessions to Chloe.

It’s so unfair that he has to lie here in the dirt while she gets to go live her life. When he died she wished for months that she could trade places with him. It had shaken her up that badly. 

The granite feels cool on Beca's forehead when she rests it against the marker as rain starts to pelt down on her in earnest. She clutches the edges of the tombstone so tight that her fingers hurt. She gasps out a shuddering breath and tries to compose herself. Tears stream down her face anyway. She can see his face now, feel his hand in hers.

The last thing he said to her – what was it? She can’t even remember and when she realizes that she just cries harder.

Eventually she remembers that the cab driver is waiting for her and well, it’s properly pouring rain now. Even if it seems impossible, Beca knows that she has to pull herself together and get back on the road.

“Bye Stephen,” she whispers and turns her back on the world of the dead, trying to drag herself back into the world of the living.

It’s hard, but Beca does manage to calm down and stop sobbing after a half hour in the cab. Her mood brightens when she nears Chloe’s apartment. Just the thought of Chloe's light laugh and sunny smile warm that cold pit in Beca's stomach. She starts trying to psyche herself up to share her feelings with Chloe. The whole waiting to be in person to confess her _love_ – wait – it’s not…that would be crazy. It’s not love. Not yet anyway. 

She texts Chloe that she’s at her place. The air is thick with rain and drama as Beca steps out of the cab, after tipping the driver generously.

Shielding her phone from the rain, Beca checks it and sees that Chloe hasn’t texted her back yet. Her nerves roll through her body and she tries to shake them off. She tries calling Chloe, but she doesn’t pick up. Beca’s been waiting for this moment so long and she’s scared that if she doesn’t go ahead and act soon, she’ll chicken out.

“Chloe!” Beca bellows over the rain through cupped hands. She directs her voice up to Chloe’s balcony and shouts Chloe’s name again, belting as loud as she can. Beca starts to look around for a pebble to throw up at Chloe’s door when all of sudden she hears doors above being thrown open. She jerks her head up and squints in the rain to see Chloe beaming down at her. She looks beautiful in workout attire with her hair in a ponytail. There’s a pen tucked behind her ear along with golden-red flyaways.

“Beca?”

“I choose you!” Beca says, afraid she might start crying again.

“What!?” Chloe is peering down at her, sheltered from the rain by an overhang on her balcony but still caught up in the thick of the storm, or maybe just caught up in Beca. She tilts her head to the side like she’s trying to hear her better and Beca swears she’s never seen someone look so cute before.

“I shouldn’t have kissed Jesse! It’s you! I want to be with you. That’s all I really know!” Beca doesn’t even care that she’s shouting in the middle of a parking lot in a thunderstorm. It feels so freeing and amazing to be honest.

Chloe stares at her with an open mouth for a second and then shakes her head, snapping out of her momentary trance. 

“Don’t move!” Chloe yells and turns to run back into her apartment. Seconds later she comes out of her front door and is running down her stairs. Beca takes several steps towards Chloe but then Chloe _crashes_ into Beca.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow this was my least favorite chapter outline and then I ended up writing a million words for it???


	3. Climax

But Chloe stops short in the embrace, eying Beca almost looking nervous.

“If you don’t want me to kiss you, you should Speak Now or forever hold your peace,” she says, almost sadly, and Beca can feel each word vibrate off of Chloe’s lips with her own. Beca lets out a half laugh though her emotions are running so high she’s still worried she might break down into tears. Instead she collides her mouth into Chloe’s.

Sparks fly.

The way Chloe kisses her is hot and desperate, almost punishing and Beca is eating it up. She can’t get enough of Chloe’s insistent lips, and then tongue, as the rain continues to pour down on them. All of a sudden Beca’s desire for Chloe is so pronounced, so demanding that Beca is afraid it might kill her. She moans hard into Chloe’s mouth before breaking the kiss and urgently saying, “Inside. Can we please go inside?”

Chloe guides her into the apartment, and they collapse onto Chloe’s couch, barely ever breaking their kiss.

Want and need descend over Beca and she finds herself high in a haze of Chloe. Grasping. Ripping. Pulling. Longing.

Tops are pulled off and tossed. Beca drinks in Chloe’s perfectly toned arms and abs. It’s not enough, it’ll never be enough.

First Chloe takes Beca’s bra off (with one hand, with almost frightening ease) then she leans her head down and runs her tongue over Beca’s nipple delicately and Beca shakes, shudders, aches. Chloe’s mouth on her breast is so erotic yet gentle that Beca fears she might implode from just that.

“Chloe, Chloe. Jesus, Chloe.”

Chloe moves her hand down to Beca’s jeans, caressing the inside of her thigh for a few moments before tugging on the button and waistband and at the same time pulling her head back a bit to capture Beca’s eyes with her own and breathlessly saying, “Can I…?”

“Yes! Yes. I mean sure. It’s just…you should know that uh,” Beca says as she chews on her own lip furiously.

“What is it?”

Beca had wondered when they would have this conversation. It’s happening a little sooner than she’d thought but she just wants to rip the band aid off.

“I’ve never done this before,” Beca rushes out, breaking eye contact with Chloe.

“Beca,” Chloe says so tenderly, her face overwhelmed with emotion.

Beca risks a glance back up at Chloe and can’t believe how much her expression has changed from hungry and wanton to soft and caring.

“We don’t have to,” Chloe promises, smoothing the back of a hand across Beca's cheek. “We can wait.”

Beca shakes her head. “I want to. I want to with you. I’ve been waiting for _you_.”

Chloe nods and smiles faintly. She grabs Beca’s hand, lacing their fingers and says, “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

Beca follows her to the bedroom and the rain outside plus the dimmed lights of Chloe’s room make for a smooth and serene scene. Beca’s heart is racing but Chloe’s hand leads her on to the bed.

Then they’re off the races kissing again and Beca forgets she’s supposed to be nervous. It’s hard to be afraid of anything when Chloe is around. Their romp in Chloe’s bed is so energetic that Beca accidentally kicks a big leather book off of Chloe’s nightstand but Chloe gasps out, “Don’t worry about it.”

Eventually Chloe lowers her hand back down to Beca’s jeans and gently pops the button open. She gives Beca one last look asking for permission and says, “Are you sure?” Her eyes are impossibly wide and earnest and her teeth graze over her own lip.

Beca doesn’t trust herself to speak so she nods her head vigorously.

Chloe carefully pushes her hand down the front of Beca’s pants, her wrist unzipping them as she moves it downward and Beca feels like there’s a fire raging between her legs. The brief seconds it takes Chloe fingers to reach Beca’s aching sex are almost too much for Beca to bear. When they brush against her Beca lets out an embarrassing long and low moan. She’s already soaking wet, and it’s not just from the rain.

Chloe toys with her clit for a few moments all while kissing her neck and ear. Beca seizes up when Chloe slips her middle finger inside of her. It’s an agonizingly glacial pace and the pressure she applies inside Beca feels pressing, perfect, important. Beca wants to give more, give everything she has to Chloe.

When Chloe adds a second finger and curls and hooks them inside of Beca, all she can do is keen and gasp and try to stop herself from whining.

Chloe makes to descend down Beca’s body and as much as she desperately wants to feel Chloe’s mouth on her, and soon, Beca doesn’t like the idea of any distance between them. She wraps her arms around Chloe and shakes her head.

“Stay,” she whispers. “Please just keep using your hand. Stay close to me. We’ve been apart for so long, just stay.”

Chloe looks at her with a tight smile but the way her eyes glitter and her lip twitches and her eyebrows quirk Beca is afraid she might start crying. She doesn’t though she just tangles her free hand up in Beca’s hair and Beca leans over to bury her face in the crook of Chloe’s neck, the rosy scent almost intoxicating her as she breathes heavily nearly losing what’s left of her composure.

Chloe presses the pad of thumb to Beca’s clit and starts to stroke it gently as she continues to curl her fingers deep inside of her, never ceasing her firm caresses on Beca’s g-spot. It feels like it should all be too much to handle and pretty quickly it is.

Something deep inside her abdomen turns, twists. The feeling that rips through her is analogues to pain. It hits all the same notes as pain yet…it’s not pain, not at all. It’s as though there’s a clock of sensation in Beca’s body and pain is at the number twelve on it, but Chloe spins Beca’s dial so hard and far away from twelve that it winds up all the way at eleven. The pleasure that strikes her couldn’t be further from pain, yet it’s so different than it, it ends up being similar.

It’s the best feeling Beca has ever experienced.

Beca has brought herself to orgasm before, she isn’t that inexperienced. But this is something else, otherworldly. She feels like she’s falling, falling, falling but at the bottom of whatever pit she’s careening blissfully into, Chloe is there to catch her, wrap her arms tight around her, smother her cheeks, forehead, lips with soft kisses. As she comes, Beca uncontrollably exhales and gasps, the feeling too forceful and all-encompassing to allow her to make any noise. The oxygen is sucked from her lungs and for a moment she thinks she might die (and if she’s being honest, she’s not all that upset about it. It would be a lovely way to go out.)

She opens her mouth but the moans she’s positive are creeping in her throat all get swallowed up as she thrashes in Chloe’s arms. She’s spasming and clenching down on Chloe’s fingers and all efforts to maintain any kind of decorum have gone out the window and she slams her mouth shut, clenching and grinding her teeth.

Beca lies dazed and glowing in Chloe’s arms for several slow minutes after Chloe pulls her hand back. Chloe nuzzles her with her nose and whispers soft promises to her.

I love you. Beca wants to blurt it out but it’s too soon. She can’t. It’d be ridiculous. It would scare Chloe off.

I love you. I love you.

Beca grips the sheets and bites her tongue trying to calm her swimming mind.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you!

It takes everything she has not to say it. She promises herself she’ll say it soon. If only she could just hold off and not say it in this vulnerable, over exposed moment. It’s so clear now, so clear.

When Beca has recovered, at least a little bit she says, “Can I…?” to Chloe while nervously pointing her forehead down in between Chloe’s legs. Chloe grins and gracefully pulls her underwear off and Beca feels stupid for having kept hers on.

She fears her face is burning as she runs her hand down Chloe’s lean body, grazing a nipple with her thumb before tracing her fingers down until she reaches Chloe’s crotch. It’s hot and wet with slick and the whole sensation makes Beca’s head spin. She finds Chloe’s clit and tries to rub it deftly with her fingers, but she’s worried she can’t do it right and she withdraws her hand. It’s then she notices it’s shaking, and her fingers are twitching.

“I- I don’t know how,” Beca admits, feeling stupid.

Chloe just smiles at her and whispers, “I’ll show you.”

She takes Beca’s hand in her own and puts it back in between her legs. Beca holds her breath as Chloe starts to rub herself with Beca’s hand. It’s wet and warm. Beca’s never been so aroused. Her thighs clench and the way her stomach swoops she wonders if she might come again. Chloe slips and slides Beca’s fingers over her wet sex and Beca gets lost staring down, watching their hands work together.

“Beca. Beca look at me,” Chloe says in a raspy, urgent voice.

Beca jerks her head around and to see that Chloe’s pupils are so blown out they look black in the darkness as they bore into her eyes. It’s still possible to make out the blue part, but only just barely as her irises become tiny slivered rings.

Chloe’s lips part softly but her cries of pleasure are anything but. Still, her orgasm is over far too fast for Beca’s taste.

After Chloe stops shaking, she maintains their eye contact until she utters out, “I love you!”

“Oh my God, I love you too,” Beca responds and they collapse into each other’s arms giggling and giddy with their new shared secret. They lay there, tangled up in one another for many minutes, possibly hours. Chloe brushes Beca’s hair out of her eyes a million different times and Beca starts trying to kiss every inch of Chloe’s skin in between whispered conversations.

It must be close to midnight when Chloe says, “Hold please. I have to make a phone call.”

“You have to make a phone call? Right _now_!?” Beca asks, incredulous.

“Yeah I have to call Aubrey! She’s going to be so happy for us!”

“You have to – **wait** , Chloe you have to _**what**_?” But Chloe is already bounding out of the room and Beca can hear a muted half of an exchange. After a few minutes Chloe walks back into the room looking rosy.

“Well, what does Aubrey have to say?” Beca asks warily, crossing her arms over her chest a little bit defensively.

“Oh my gosh, she’s thrilled for us!”

“I’m glad.”

“Mhmm,” Chloe chirps while nodding happily. “But she said she won’t let us have a white wedding now.”

“Chloe!” Beca yells and throws a pillow at her smug girlfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALLLLL ABOARD THE SMUT TRAAAAIN
> 
> (fair warning I only have outlines after this so who knows if I'll ever update this story again)


	4. Conflict

And it’s wonderful. It’s more wonderful than Beca could have ever imagined.

That doesn’t mean she and Chloe don’t ever fight, though.

Some of their arguments are playful, even performative.

One night, Beca goes into Chloe’s room after having sent her latest mashup to her. Chloe’s already downloaded it onto her ancient brick of an old school iPod.

Chloe listens to the new mix while Beca waits, excited for legitimate feedback. Chloe, however, keeps moaning and rolling her eyes around and telling Beca that the song is so good that it’s going to get her off.

Beca groans and begs Chloe to take it seriously but she won’t.

After the fifth ridiculous sexual inuendo Chloe makes Beca says, “I swear to God, Chloe, keep it in your pants.”

“Oh, I plan to put it there, trust me,” Chloe responds in a sensual tone, wiggling her eyebrows and sliding her iPod down her stomach and into her shorts.

“Chloe!” Beca says, exasperated. She throws herself onto Chloe’s bed dramatically, flopping her arms over her face as Chloe leans over to run her fingers over Beca’s ribs before pulling her into a tight embrace while giggling.

“I _knew_ you were trouble,” Beca says while shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

Sometimes their arguments aren’t so fun.

Chloe shoos Beca away one night during Beca’s junior year (Chloe’s _third_ senior year) at only eight PM.

“Sorry Becs, I was up late last night writing.”

Beca tries to swat her frustration away because Chloe is _always_ putting her schoolwork last and procrastinating. In theory Beca wants Chloe to stay at Barden forever, or at least until Beca finishes up school. In practice Beca dreads the idea of Chloe sabotaging herself just to hang around until Beca graduates.

“Jesus _why_ are you always making school your last priority. You can’t stay here forever Chloe.” It comes out angrier and more patronizing than Beca means it to, but it’s too late to take it back now.

Fire flashes across Chloe’s face. “That’s not- I wasn’t even- that’s not even the _point_ Beca. It’s none of your business what I do or don’t do for my classes!”

“You make me feel like it’s my fault that you’re not graduating dude! You know I love that you’re still here but I’m also afraid you’re holding yourself back for me!”

“You love that I’m still here? Could have fooled me,” Chloe says coldly. “Just go Beca.”

Beca leaves the room furious and guilty. 

When Chloe doesn’t talk to her for an entire twenty-four hours, she starts to get nervous and against her better judgement dials Aubrey. Beca explains what happened and Aubrey sighs.

“You should try being nicer to her Beca. Chloe does things at her own speed.”

“I love her, I shouldn’t have to be nice to her _all the time_!”

“Beca…”

“I know, I know I heard it the second I said it. I just…I feel so guilty! Always! Like, what if she’s ruining her life for me? What if no one will hire her because she spent so many years in school? I’m not worth that.”

Aubrey takes a deep breath before saying, “Ok one, if no one will give her a job after she graduates _when she’s ready_ , then _I’ll_ hire her. Two, you _are_ worth it. You’re worth everything to her.”

“You’re so corny,” Beca says even while her heart melts at Aubrey’s words and her face scrunches up with emotion.

“Maybe but no one knows Chloe like I do, and you know I’m right. Now go apologize. She’s been whining in her texts to me about how much she misses you all day,” Aubrey says curtly.

Beca goes to apologize to Chloe and they end up wrapped in each other’s arms. Beca’s brushing tears off of Chloe’s cheeks when Chloe says, “It’s just so hard loving you.”

“I know. I’m an asshole. I’m- “

“No! No! Not like that!” Chloe croaks. “I’ve just never loved anyone or anything so hard before. It’s exhausting.”

Beca falls asleep nestled deep in Chloe’s arms that night. She wakes up early and makes Chloe’s favorite breakfast and brings it to her in bed. Beca apologizes hundred times and then a hundred more times and Chloe’s eyes twinkle while she feeds Beca fresh strawberries. Afterwards she kisses Beca until the sweetness fades off of her lips.

Sometimes they’re on the same side of a disagreement.

Fat Amy starts trying to sell some kind of bootleg hunch punch to freshman and someone calls the cops on her. The police come to their door and Jessica and Ashley use a bunch of legal terms confidently with the officers and they get off with a warning.

Chloe and Beca both lay into Fat Amy when she tries to defend her actions about how she put all of them and the Bellas’ house permit at risk. They warn her of her selfishness and make her swear to never do anything like that again.

“Thanks for backing me up in there,” Chloe says after kissing Beca on the cheek once they’re done scolding Fat Amy.

“Of course! I’ll always have you back babe.”

Sometimes their fights are well… _sexy_.

During Beca’s senior year, she makes the mistake of accidentally hitting on that dumb German bitch every time she comes across her.

After they speak at the basement riff off Beca turns bright Red and Chloe gets green and Beca knows all too well she’s in trouble that night.

“You’re _mine_ ,” Chloe growls as she fucks Beca from behind. “Mine. You’re mine. Say it.”

“I’m, I’m,” Beca pants, searching desperately for breath. She can’t find any. She's lying face down, flat on her stomach in a puddle on Chloe's bed surrounded by decorative pillows, clutching Chloe's overstuffed Anthropologie comforter.

Chloe slaps her ass and adds a third finger viciously but Beca still feels insatiable.

“ _Say it.”_ Chloe thrusts harder and Beca knows she’s running out of time and it won't be long before she completely loses her voice and spills into a pool of whimpers and moans.

“I’m – _Jesus_ – I’m _yours_.”

“Say my name.”

“Chloe. I’m yours Chloe.”

“You’d better say my name when you come you little brat.”

No matter how they fight, whatever happens, Beca loves when they make up.


	5. Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They move to New York City. They don’t let Fat Amy move in with them, though she stalks them and lives down the hallway, somehow in a much bigger apartment.

Time passes perfectly. Aubrey moves to the city after she burns out at The Lodge of Fallen Leaves. Beca works at the record label and Chloe interns at a vet’s office, somehow inexplicably still hungry for more school. She takes night classes to make up science pre-requisites for vet school.

One night, Beca’s on the couch, Chloe’s across the room in the kitchenette washing ink stains that she probably got from being absentminded while studying, off her hands and arms. Sometimes she gets so absorbed in her studies that she forgets everything else around her.

“I learned why people kiss today,” Chloe says, turning the sink off with her elbow and grabbing their hand towel off of the stove to dry her hands.

“Oh?” Beca says and puts down the Rolling Stone magazine she’s been flipping through so she can pay attention to Chloe.

“Yep! It’s so you can exchange antibodies with your mate so when you have a baby, the baby will have more immunity to things!”  
  


Chloe crosses the room and lays down on the couch making Beca shift so Chloe can put her head in Beca’s lap and grin up at her.

Her hair looks light as Beca strokes it. “Is this your way of telling me you don’t want to kiss me anymore? Since we can’t actually have kids?” Beca quips.

“No!” Chloe giggles. “I’ll always want to kiss you. And we _can_ have kids, even if we can’t do it like straight people. We can do adoption, use a sperm donor, I carry your egg, you carry mine. We have lots of options. I hope we have a girl, though.” Chloe has an irresistible daydream look in her eye.

“Why because you’ve already had enough dicks in you to last a lifetime?”

“No!” Chloe gives Beca’s arm a little slap even as she laughs. Then her expression softens. “It’s because I want her to look like you.”

Beca stops cackling over her own dumb joke when Chloe says that. “You’re so sweet. I don’t deserve you.”

“You really don’t.”

“What would you wanna name her?” Beca asks thoughtfully. Admittedly, she hasn’t spent a ton of time planning a family. But with Chloe bringing it up, the idea seems a whole lot more appealing.

“I like the name Ava.”

“Ava…that’s pretty,” Beca muses. “What about for a boy?”

“What do you think?”

“What about Stephen?” Beca says softly.

Chloe nods and presses Beca’s fingers to her lips and they fall quiet for a while.

And the more Beca thinks about starting a family with Chloe, the more she grows to like the idea. So, she’s going to ask Chloe to marry her. They’ve talked about it. Beca knows it’s on Chloe’s radar, though she isn’t expecting it right now. They’ve talked about maybe doing it after Chloe’s finished with school but one, Beca’s not entirely convinced that Chloe is _ever_ going to actually be done with school and two, they don’t have to get married right away or anything, Beca just doesn’t see the point of not putting a ring on it. She’s never going to love anyone else, why not get engaged?

She asks Fat Amy to go engagement ring shopping with her.

“I’m surprised you asked me and not Aubrey,” Fat Amy says.

“Yeah well, I just don’t want to risk anything getting back to Chloe. I want it to be a surprise.”

Fat Amy runs her pointer finger and thumb around her chin looking pensive. “Hmm, I would have thought it’s because she’d be mad because she wants to be married before she’s twenty-seven and you and Chloe are getting to it before her.”

“Dude she’s twenty-eight already,” Beca says as they walk into a jewelry store.

“Really!? When was she born?” Fat Amy says while Beca tries to avoid the attention of a sweet looking saleswoman who probably just wants to help. Beca hates having to interact with salespeople.

“She was – can you stop messing with those necklaces? She was born in 1989.”

“Whatever. Hey, did you hear me last night?”

“Hear you? When?”

“Midnight.”

Beca shakes her head and Fat Amy continues, “I had this hot bloke over. Oh, he gave it to me great.”

Beca groans and covers her face with her hands. Fat Amy is _so_ loud.

“He takes me home. Lights are off,” Fat Amy says while gesticulating wildly. “He’s taking off his coat, right? And I have this tight little skirt on. It was _really_ hard to get it off, see- “

“Amy! Enough! You are a nightmare,” Beca says through gritted teeth.

“Dressed like a daydream?”

“No, you’re just a nightmare period.”

Beca corrals her friend back into shopping with her and unsurprisingly Fat Amy isn’t any help at all.

After a few hours and six different jewelers Beca just picks the one that looks most like a few pictures she found in some bridal magazines shoved under Chloe’s abandoned pet cactus and in the shadow of a box filled with old dusty books and photo albums brimming with sepia toned polaroids. Chloe had dog-eared all her favorite rings and Beca’s snooping paid off when she found them.

The next Friday, Beca nervously cooks dinner; steak as it’s the fanciest thing she knows how to cook properly. She figures they can eat out on the fire escape (they’ve illegally converted it into a makeshift balcony), and she can ask Chloe to marry her as the sun sets over the New York City skyline.

_Just keep it simple,_ Beca internally chants to herself as they eat dinner and catch up about what they did over the day. _Keep it simple. Say, ‘Chloe, I love you. Will you marry me?’_

After they finish eating, Beca suggests champagne and hurries inside. Her hands shake while she pours the nicest champagne she could find (and afford) into two flute glasses. Bubbles sizzle around Chloe’s ring after she drops it into the glass. The clinking noise it makes just forces her stomach to warp into an even tighter ball of nerves.

Beca walks over to the window to crawl back out onto the fire escape and she sees Chloe, down on one knee, tears already streaming down her face mingling with her gigantic grin. She’s holding a small ivory ring box.

“Beca, I love you. I want you, forever and ever. Please will you marry me? I don’t know how much longer I can go without being married to you,” Chloe says in an incredibly warm and light tone given the tears trickling out of her eyes.

Beca is so shocked she drops both the champagne glasses. She watches in horror as they shatter and the contents, including Chloe’s engagement ring, fall thirteen stories down onto the Brooklyn concrete below.

“ ** _No_**!” Beca screams.

“What!?” Chloe says looking positively horrified.

“No, your ring! I mean yes! I will. Marry you of course but- “

Beca wants to pull Chloe into an embrace but she _can’t_ , not with the ring down there on the sidewalk. She rushes back inside grabbing so frantically at her keys all she manages to do is to throw them violently onto the floor.

Stammering bewilderedly, Chloe crawls into the apartment through the window, keeping the ring box still outstretched in her hand. She looks like a hurt puppy. Beca’s heart is pounding so loudly in her ears that she can’t really make out what Chloe is saying. She hates herself as she sprints out of the door and down the stairs.

Somehow, by some complete, absolute, freak miracle, Chloe’s ring is laying in broad view on the sidewalk when Beca gets to it. She drops down on one knee and snatches it up, then kisses it before she remembers it was on the New York street. She makes a mental note to brush her teeth and wash her mouth out for at least an hour.

Chloe appears in front of her looking terrified.

“Beca?”

“I cannot believe you beat me to this,” Beca says, extending the ring out and up to Chloe. Chloe’s eyes sparkle and she clasps her hands to her chest as the situation dawns on her. “Will you marry me Chloe? I can’t wait anymore either. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life loving you.”

All Chloe can do is nod while she wails out the happiest sob Beca has ever heard and yanks Beca up to her feet. Chloe kisses her so hard that Beca’s ears pop and her eyes water.

When they kiss, people who have stopped their walking to gawk at them start clapping and whooping. Car horns start honking and blaring and Beca flushes miserably, but she’s never been so happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might fuck around and write a rom com now damn these homos make me soft
> 
> [sorry if me and fat amy ruined style for you complain to me about it on tumblr](https://cameron-gray-esquire.tumblr.com/ask)


	6. Happy Ending

Aubrey plans the wedding. Chloe and Beca _try_ to reign her in. They manage to nix the live dove release, the full orchestra, the six ice sculptures. All in all, Beca’s glad Aubrey is so eager to help. The way she dives into organizing, scheduling, planning, it makes the whole thing feel a lot more real. Beca can’t believe that she finds herself looking up moodboards on Pinterest and flipping through gardening magazines to get ideas about floral arrangements but…well, it’s _so fun!_

Chloe uses her perfect and neat handwriting to hand-make their invitations.

Beca has to reel in Chloe sometimes too.

“Chloe, Tom can’t be our ring bearer. He’s _twenty-nine_ ,” Beca says crossing her arms and passes back and forth in the kitchenette as they try to settle on their finalized wedding party.

“But he’s like my oldest and truest guy friend!” Chloe whines from her perch on top of the kitchen table.

“Yeah the fact that he’s the oldest is part of the reason we don’t need him to be the ring bearer. Besides I thought we talked about this. I thought we said no guys in the wedding party. Also, with what happened with your engagement ring, I don’t think we should take any more risks by letting anyone hold our rings.”

“Well _Tom_ didn’t drop my engagement ring through the fire escape,” Chloe grumbles.

They settle on splitting the Bellas up into two groups of bridesmaids. Fat Amy, Cynthia Rose, Flo, and Lilly will stand behind Beca. Aubrey, Stacie, Jessica, and Ashley will stand with Chloe. Emily insists on being their flower girl which both Beca and Chloe fold on, no matter how silly it seems. Neither of them has ever been very good at telling Emily no.

The months soar by. Cake tastings, fittings, a shared bachelorette party held in Nashville all mix and muddle with everyday life and it all becomes a blur.

The only detail Beca isn’t completely clued in on is Chloe’s dress.

Beca’s wearing a suit. She had sort of hemmed and hawed while trying to decide if she would wear a dress or pants or who knows what. After she saw the price tags on the dresses Aubrey wanted her to try on, she easily settled on a suit, giving the majority of their clothes budget to Chloe.

The black slacks and black blazer that Beca picks out are crisp and fitted and simple. The only thing she knows about Chloe’s dress is that it’s a pale blue. Aubrey is _militant_ about a lot of the old wedding traditions and superstitions and she certainly won’t allow Beca to see the bride in her dress before the wedding.

The day of the wedding, April 25th comes so much faster than Beca’s expecting.

The venue has a nice hall indoors where they’re getting married and then tents up outside over the dance floor and buffet where the reception is being held which is lucky because clouds roll over the venue all morning. It looks like the sky is at least threatening rain.

Beca wants to get ready alone while Chloe does the more classic ‘bride gets ready in a suite with all her bridesmaids’ thing. Beca’s bridesmaids are wearing suits similar to hers except with white shirts and they show up mostly ready. Since they’re all already primed to go, they start drinking and scatter across the venue offering to help get the place ready. This gives Beca time to enjoy a glass of champagne herself and practice her vows.

Unfortunately, the champagne runs right through her and she takes it with her in search of a bathroom. There’s one in Chloe’s suite but when Beca knocks and asks to come in she hears Aubrey’s voice.

“I’m sorry Beca but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you in here. Chloe’s in her dress already and it’s bad luck for you to see her!”

“Ugh fine. I’ll go find a bathroom somewhere else.”

“Can you keep an eye out for Stacie please? She got dressed and then disappeared,” Aubrey says.

“Sure, sure.”

Beca wanders around the grand hall trying different doors looking for a restroom, slowly getting more and more desperate as her bladder feels fuller and fuller.

She tries a dozen different doors but isn’t ready for what she sees. It’s _not_ a bathroom it’s a supply room and Cynthia-Rose is kneeling in front of Stacie with her hand very obviously up her light green bridesmaid’s dress. Stacie looks _very_ happy.

“Jesus!” Beca screams and splashes her glass of champagne all over the floor. “Look what you made me do!”

Cynthia-Rose snaps her head around and says, “Hey don’t blame _me._ ”

“Love made me crazy,” Stacie pants and Beca slams the door and hustles back to Chloe’s suite muttering, “ _Honestly_ , how many lesbians are there in this fucking a cappella group.”

Stacie has this Reputaton but Cynthia-Rose doesn't!

She covers her eyes and slams into Chloe’s room without knocking.

“Chill out Aubrey I’m not looking ok? I just need to piss. You _do not_ want to know what I just walked in on and saw Cynthia-Rose doing to Stacie.”

“Oh no,” Beca hears Aubrey say worriedly but she can hear Chloe cackling louder than Aubrey’s voice.

The worst of the drama seems to be behind them and Beca forgets about it when she sees Chloe walk down the aisle towards them looking the perfect part of the definition of endgame. Beca swallows back tears while she watches her.

“We are gathered here today…” Gail Abernathy-McKadden-Feinberg starts and Beca clasps Chloe’s hands and zones out because Chloe looks so fucking beautiful and delicate with her eyes tearing up and the grey clouds accentuating her perfect skin and the soft blue of her dress. Aubrey tears up too, gleaming like a madwoman over Chloe’s shoulder. She must be thrilled with her matchmaking skills.

“And now these two moderately attractive girls, who look a lot nicer than usual today, will exchange vows,” Gail says airily.

Chloe chooses to use traditional marriage vows but of course Beca has written her own.

“I vow that in a crowded room you’re the first person I’ll find,” Beca starts, her voice shaking a bit. Seriously dozens of a cappella performances, including for the president of the united states and this is when she feels the most nervous? So it goes.

“I vow that I’ll always be yours and you’ll always be mine.

I vow that for you I would cross the line.

I vow for you I would waste my time.

I vow for you I would lose my mind,” Beca goes on and on, waxing poetic about everything she promises to Chloe, but most of all, she promises to love her forever and ever, over and over.

After the ceremony is finished Beca and Chloe are ushered back to Chloe’s suite for a private moment before they have to go take photos.

The instant the door closes behind them, Chloe is all over Beca kissing, grabbing, tugging urgently.

“Jesus. Jesus, Chlo, I love you but chill. I’m pretty sure they don’t want people having sex in here,” Beca gasps.

“Oh please Beca if they didn’t want people having sex in here they wouldn’t let people get married here. They’re _asking_ for it.”

“Well that came out kind of…creepy. Chloe, _stop_. You can’t. Your dress, please. We still have to take photos!”

Chloe pulls away from Beca while clasping her face and says very seriously, “My dress? I only bought this dress so you could take it off. Now make love to your wife.”

On the word ‘wife’ Beca decides, _yeah ok, fuck the dress,_ and starts trying to take it off.

Their embrace is shattered, however, by Aubrey crashing into the room to remind them about photos. They get a lecture from her about being on time for things and public indecency and after her scolding they head outside, hand in hand, glowing gold and grinning, to take pictures.

After about ten minutes the sky bottoms out and rain pours over them and while Aubrey screeches about how if only they hadn’t decided to fuck thirteen seconds after getting married maybe this wouldn’t have happened but Beca and Chloe ignore her and kiss in the rain. Beca is irresistibly reminded of their first kiss in Chloe’s parking lot all those years ago.

Luckily, they’d all brought clothes to change into before the reception. Everything goes well with the dinner and Beca’s looking forward to cutting the cake. She and Chloe have both sworn not to smash cake into each other’s faces and Aubrey approves skipping that particular tradition.

They gingerly feed one another bites of cake, careful not to make any mess, drop any crumbs, or smear icing on their faces. Fat Amy has other ideas apparently, and she shoves her way over to them to try and grab both of their hands and smash cake into their faces. Instead she completely whiffs, trips, and falls straight on top of the cake, pancaking it and the table it’s resting on to the ground.

All Beca can do is lean over and bellow laughter until she cries. The image of Fat Amy squirming and huffing in a pile of a seven-hundred-dollar cake is just too much. Likewise, Chloe can’t keep a straight face, though she tries to as she rushes off to follow and comfort Aubrey who has shrieked in dismay and stormed out of the room, crying.

Beca realizes that no matter what happened this day was always going to be perfect. They dance into the wee hours and Beca’s lone regret is that Stephen isn’t there to see it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this made me wish i were getting married lol


	7. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Please check the tags! Death incoming!
> 
> Also, this is my first official fandom week and it was so fun! Thank you so much for your reads, comments, and kudos. It has been a blast!

“I knew something like this would happen,” Chloe says emotionlessly. “I was too happy.”

The wedding was eighteen months ago.

She had called Beca that morning, just an hour or so after Beca had gotten to the studio.

“Hey Lover, how was your doctor’s appointment?” Beca said.

“Come home for lunch Beca. I love you,” is pretty much all Chloe had said.

“It _can’t_ be cancer,” Beca says, pacing angrily in front of their bed where Chloe sits fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of her skirt. “It can’t be. They said it was a secondary infection. Or at worst pneumonia.”

Beca stops and makes to run her fingers through her hair, getting frustrated in the middle of the movement and letting out an angry groan and choosing to pull at it instead. Chloe just stares with her head down.

“It was just a _cough,_ Chloe. It was just supposed to be a cough! You don’t even smoke!” Beca says. She thinks maybe if she keeps saying all the facts stacked in their favor it will reverse the diagnosis. Combat, she’s ready for combat. She’s ready to go to war.

“The doctor said that this type of lung cancer occurs in people who don’t smoke.” Chloe shrugs. “And my dad smoked. I probably inhaled a lot of second hand smoke as a kid.

“But he didn’t get lung cancer.” Beca’s voice cracks and she can’t make eye contact with Chloe. She just keeps shaking her head as if to tell the cancerous cells ravaging Chloe’s lungs ‘no’.

“He died of a heart attack. It was probably from smoking. It doesn’t matter, Beca. Surgery is in a week. Then chemo and radiation.”

Beca kneels in front of Chloe and buries her head in her lap. “Soon you’ll get better,” she pledges.

This won’t go back to normal if it ever was.

Beca stops sleeping through the night. She wakes up hyperventilating and flinging her arms out behind her to feel Chloe and make sure she’s still breathing. When she does sleep, she dreams of angry and bleeding organs, stone angels, and hospital beds.

Beca goes with Chloe to her next appointment where the enologist patiently tells them the plan. They’ll remove the left lobe of her lung through a small incision between two of her ribs.

“Will I still be able to…Will it still be possible to- “ Chloe cuts herself off with a rattled little sob.

“Will she still be able to sing after?” Beca asks for her.

“Oh yes! Absolutely, after a little recovery we’ll get you singing in the shower before no time,” Dr. Hon promises, a bit too cheery for Beca’s taste.

Chloe is a champ throughout the surgery. “She did great, perfect even,” Dr. Hon assures Beca. Beca sits next to Chloe in the recovery suite waiting for her to wake up.

She squeezes her fingers and promises, “You’ll get better soon. ‘Cause you have to.”

Chloe wakes up. Beca breathes easy for a few minutes.

When Chloe starts chemotherapy, Beca goes all out. She invites all the Bellas over for a dinner party and orders a ton of food complete with a chocolate cake that reads ‘Happy First Chemo!’ on it. Inside she’s raining but she tries to stay bright for Chloe. Chloe laughs a lot that night. Aubrey sleeps over on the sofa. When Beca wakes up, she sees them sitting and watching some morning news program, Chloe’s head resting easy on Aubrey’s shoulder.

Beca breathes easy for a few minutes.

“I hate my reflection,” Chloe says one morning in the bathroom as she stares glumly in the mirror. Her hair isn’t falling out but it’s starting to fade and it’s also started to break easily at the tips. She’s cut it short, a little over chin length, to manage it better. Her face is a bit sunken in but in an angular way that Beca still finds beautiful if not a bit sad. Beca sets her toothbrush down.

“No Chlo, don’t- “ but Beca is cut off by Chloe retching and ducking her head to throw up into the toilet. Beca rushes to her side, tucking Chloe’s hair back behind her ears and keeping a protective hand on her back. When Chloe stops getting sick she rests her head on her arms, propped up by the toilet bowl. Her eyes look less like summer skies and more like rumbling clouds.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Beca can see the exhaustion worn into new grooves on her face.

“Don’t ever apologize,” Beca insists desperately. “Please. You have to know you’re the best thing about my life, vomit and all. It’s you and me. That’s my whole world.”

Chloe closes her eyes and nods. Beca swears she can see her will herself to live a little longer and Beca feels guilty. But she still breathes easy for a few minutes.

Radiation sessions, chemo appointments, follow-ups, and doctors’ visits run through twelve calendar pages before Chloe is declared cancer-free.

Beca dares to light a small candle made of hope in her chest.

Another year passes.

Beca hopes a little bit more, the flame that was barely an ember quickens and grows an infinitesimal amount. If Chloe can make it five years, the odds of reoccurrence shrink exponentially. One year down, four more to go.

But Beca comes home one day and the apartment is like the eerie start to a horror movie. It’s deadly quiet and grey inside.

“Chloe? Chloe!” Beca rushes from the living room, by the kitchen, into the bedroom, only to see Chloe lying dazed on their bathroom floor.

The candle of hope is snuffed out.

Beca scrambles over to her.

“Chloe what happened? Chloe? Chloe, _please_.”

But Chloe just stares up at her, eyes unfocused. The right side of her face has started to bruise a nasty blue. Something must have made her fall.

“Help!” Beca screams before remembering they’re alone in their apartment. She races to her phone and calls an ambulance. She texts Aubrey on the ride over and Aubrey swears to be there as soon as she can.

In the emergency room the on-call doctor tells Beca it was a stroke. “A s _troke_? It can’t have been,” Beca says as she shakes her head in disbelief. “She’s only thirty-two it wasn’t a stroke.”

The doctor shrugs and tells her a cardiologist will give them more information.

When Chloe gets settled in a recovery room Beca begs her to talk but the nurses inform her that while Chloe isn’t suffering any physical problems with her muscles like some stroke patients, the clot affected her brain in such a way that it’s tampering with her ability to speak and communicate.

Beca wants to inform them that they’re full of shit and very mistaken. Nothing could steal Chloe’s voice. She bites her tongue instead and waits for the occupational therapist to come in and work with Chloe. The sooner she starts the better.

“Can you draw your signature?” a kind and plump woman asks Chloe gently.

Chloe picks up the pen with her left hand.

“You’re right-handed, Chlo.” Beca’s voice comes out so gravelly she doesn’t recognize it

Chloe gives a faint nod and switches the pen to her right and scrawls out Chloe A Beale as neatly as ever.

“Great job sweetie!” the therapist coos. “Can you write out ‘I am tired’ now?

Chloe scrunches her face up in concentration and puts the pen to paper but it’s as if she’s a frozen computer. She stays there stalled and frustrated for a moment.

“Here,” the therapist says and Beca realizes her hands hurt from how tightly she’s been clenching her fists. She tries and fails to relax them.

The therapist continues, “Let me write it for you, and then you copy it ok?” And she writes out I am tired on the page, then hands the pen back to Chloe.

Chloe stares at the words and a tiny flicker of realization plays across her eyes as she starts to write carefully.

Beca leans over to watch the words appear on the page.

Chloe writes out I am loved in her perfect handwriting. Beca gasps and then chokes as tears flood her eyes. She steps back then forward. Chloe knows. She still knows.

The therapist hands the paper to Beca when she leaves and Beca thanks her about a hundred times.

Beca stands by Chloe’s hospital bed, holding her hand for dear life.

“Help me hold onto you,” she begs. Faint recognition flickers across Chloe’s face and she gives Beca the slightest nod while the corners of her mouth twitch up.

This won’t go back to normal if it ever was.

Aubrey gets there soon and says sweet things to Chloe while she strokes her hair. Chloe shows off her dim smile for Aubrey. She falls asleep with Beca holding her hand on one side and Aubrey holding the other.

They sneak out to get coffee and Beca can’t stop fidgeting, running her hands through her hair, hooking her thumbs in and out of her belt loops. She’s having trouble expressing herself to Aubrey.

“It’s like…” she says, at a loss for words as she shakes her head.

“Death by a thousand cuts,” Aubrey supplies, graceful as always.

After a few days Chloe regains the ability to speak and Beca dares to breathe, but it doesn’t come easy. The doctors inform them that the radiation Chloe had for her lung cancer damaged her heart and caused the stroke. Chloe comes home a few days later. 

Aubrey starts spending nights on the couch more often. She moves around demure and quiet as if she’s an imposition but Beca’s honestly glad for the company. Chloe is faded somehow and Beca is scared to leave her alone. She’s mostly fine but sometimes now Chloe mixes up words. She’ll say puppy instead of kitten or pink instead of red. It would be cute if it weren’t the side effect of multiple life-threatening medical emergencies.

Beca gets the words ‘I am loved’ tattooed on her wrist in Chloe’s exact handwriting. She looks at it at least a thousand times a day.

After six months Beca is forced to go out to LA for work. She doesn’t want to but Chloe bullies her into it.

“You can’t skulk around here forever, love. I’ll be fine, I promise you. This is a big opportunity for you. Aubrey can stay with me,” Chloe says.

In the end Beca agrees.

“Take care of her Aubrey. Love you, Chlo!” Beca hollers over her shoulder as she leaves for the airport.

The next day at lunch with a potential client Beca gets a call from Aubrey. She excuses herself and walks a few steps away from the table to take it.

“Hello?”

“Beca?” It isn’t Aubrey it’s Cynthia-Rose. Why does Cynthia-Rose have Aubrey’s phone?

“What? Where’s Aubrey? What happened, what’s wrong?”

“Beca it’s Chloe- “

“No.” Beca’s heart is pounding nearly through her chest.

“She had a- “

“Don’t. Don’t do this to me.”

“She had a heart attack. She didn’t make it. I’m so sor- “

Beca drops her phone and staggers towards the door. She has to get to Chloe. She has to…she has…she…

If she can just reach her…Chloe would never leave her. She just needs to get to her. Chloe won’t die, not if Beca’s there.

Beca stumbles out of the restaurant out onto the parking lot. The cruel summer pummels and envelopes her, and she sinks to her knees as she starts to sob hateful tears.

_How will I get home?_ She thinks desperately.

_Home is gone. Home is dead. I don’t have a home anymore._ She realizes with dread.

A terrible and wretched and bitter last thought crosses her mind as she howls and weeps out on the hard pavement.

_Of course. Of course. Of course, Chloe would die of a broken heart._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you didn't come here to not feel things right?
> 
> so this was a secret prequel and the next part of this series is already written!
> 
> in taylor swift fashion I hid a lot of clues that this was the prequel to in a world and if anyone can find them all wins a prize


End file.
